Darkness Until Eternity
by blackcatt19
Summary: In Kingdom Hearts, time has no meaning. There's no need to eat, sleep. There is nothing but the Darkness. Fifty years after Riku was locked behind the door, Sora's nine-year-old granddaughter discovers a boy washed up on the beach. One-shot, gen, non-COM/KH2 compliant.
_In the endless abyss of Kingdom Hearts, there is no time. If Riku had known the price that came with staying behind, no one could have closed that door on him. KH2 Non-compliant. Gen._

* * *

Shera loved living with her grandparents, in their tiny cottage beside the lighthouse, if only for the beach. She felt that there was nothing better than a dawn walk down the cliffs, to the sand, stepping into the froth of the waves and letting the water wash away her footprints. She took one of these dawn walks every day, despite the disgust it drew from her cousin.

Shera Hikari was a nine-year-old girl with bright blue eyes and wild brown hair. Her mother didn't particularly like her early walks, 'cause she was so young, but she always snuck out anyway, to come home, usually before anyone else had risen, with a basket full of clams, or a pocket of pretty shells, or a few pieces of strangely shaped driftwood that had washed up of the beach.

That day started out like any other. The air was cool, and a breeze blew off the waves, tossing fleecy clouds through the pink sky. There had been a storm that night, a typhoon, really, the black clouds blocking out the light, and the fierce gusts causing the ancient lighthouse to sway. Her mother had been adamant, she was _not_ going out in the morning, the waves would be rough and the wind would pick her up and take her away, but her grandfather had just smiled and winked.

"She growing up, 'Kiko, let her roam a bit. 'Sides, the storm'll be gone long before morning, and there will be lots of treasures for her to find washed up on the sand." Shera knew better than to doubt her grandfather. He knew everything, about everything. He looked sad again, though, as he stared out at the raging darkness, and she didn't know why. But Grandpa had always been sad, and Grandma too, so she didn't think twice about it.

And so, she was once again walking the familiar path down the cliff face, to the sand far below. Her mother hated that she took that path, and had, several times, forbidden her to use it, afraid that she would fall over the ledge. It was the quickest way, and the view was beautiful. And best of all, it took her by her secret place, the tiny, abandoned house just hidden by the trees, where she stored many of her finds.

She didn't know why the shack was abandoned, and every time she had asked her grandparents, they had gotten very sad again, and told her not to go in there. She never asked anymore.

If that day had truly been like any other day, she would have walked down the cliff, past the house and to the shore. She would have strolled through the surf, searching for her treasures until she reached the palm tree with yellow coconuts, which was where she always turned back. She would have stored the best of what she found in the house, then trudged back up the cliff to the lighthouse, to breakfast and then playing on the children's island with her friends. But _that_ day wasn't like every other day.

 _That_ day changed everything.

One day, looking back, Shera wasn't really sure what had prompted her to walk past the palm tree with the yellow coconuts, what had made her keep going, all the way to the point. Looking back, she wasn't even completely certain she was glad that she had made that decision. Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn't found what had washed up on the point, hadn't found what that had scattered her family, ruined her home, heralded the end of everything she knew.

But she knew, even if things had been different, that she would have regretted it, not looking that day. She would have regretted hearing later that her heart had been right, that the little tugs had needed to be followed.

Regardless, she went. She walked out through the shallow waves, bare footprints washed away in an instant. Her blue eyes were trained on the sand, searching, always searching. She was almost at the point, when something made her look up…and then she saw it.

She wasn't sure what it was at first, this large lump of dirty, ragged trash that had washed up in the storm. Shera took her time to wander over, thinking it to be nothing but trash, and wanting to be careful not to miss any shells. But when she reached it…

With a gasp, she dropped her bucket on the ground, her carefully collected seashells rolling everywhere as she fell to her knees. It was a person…a boy, not too much older than her cousin. His hair was dark with water, matted and filthy and stuck to his face in clumps, so long that if his jaw hadn't been so masculine, and slightly stubbly, Shera might have thought him a girl. His face was equally dirty, but pale beneath it, as though he hadn't seen the sun in months. His clothes were ragged, filthy, torn to shreds in clean, knife-like cuts, slowly oozing blood, which were mirrored into his skin.

Shera didn't know what to do. His lips were blue, and his breathing as ragged as his clothes, and she knew, she _knew_ , that he was hurt and sick and maybe even dying. She grabbed his hand, scarred and contrasting with her tanned one, and tried to rub heat into it, but quickly gave up. He felt like ice…there was no warmth left in him.

Grandpa. Grandpa would know what to do…he always did. Every other time they had found someone washed up on the beach, he had known what to do. But to get to her grandfather, she would just have to carry him back to the cliff and start screaming, 'cause there was no way she would ever be able to carry him up it.

The brown haired child quickly tried to make a decision. If she left him here, it would be twice as long to get him help…she wasn't sure whether he would be alive or not by then. But if she carried him, it wouldn't do that much more good! She would take a lot longer to carry him to the cliff than it would take if it was just her running, and he did look heavy…But no, if she took him with her, she could help a little if he got too much colder, or stopped breathing, or something.

With a sharp nod of her head, Shera made her decision. The girl reached down and grabbed one of his bare arms, pulling it up to her shoulder. Shera was strong for her age, and fit, and he was thin, so thin, but he was much bigger than she was, and it was very, very awkward. Nevertheless, she did her best. She carried him to the cliff, even if it took so, so long, even if she dropped him once, twice, three times, even if by halfway, her arms were screaming and her breath came in harsh gasps, even as his got shallower and shallower. In the end, they made it.

She left him in her special house, lying on the old, old bed in the second room on the right, the one with the Blitzball posters and the wooden sword covered with dust. She had shoved him up on the old bed, and tucked the covers under his chin to make sure he kept what warmth he had, and trying to not sneeze from all of the dust that drifted up in a thick cloud from the bed.

And then, Shera ran. She ran like the wind, dashing up the path, up the cliff, faster than she had ever run before. She burst into the cottage, the door slamming into the wall, and making Grandma's pictures rattle in their frames.

"Shera! Where have you been! It's almost nine o'clock!" Her mother was so mad, blue eyes blazing. Mama would be pretty if she wasn't always so worried, with long black hair and big green eyes. But after Papa died, and Mama had to work all of the time, lines had started to appear on her still young face, making her look a lot older.

"Grandpa! Where is Grandpa!" Shera screamed, tearing past her mother and into the living room, searching. His gray head peeked around the corner from the kitchen.

Shera's grandpa _did_ know everything, at least about a bunch of stuff. He had been the lighthouse keeper here for almost forty years, ever since his own mother and father had died, and he had seen just about everything. He had gray hair, that fell in wild, untamable spikes and eyes as blue as the sky, just like Shera. But, more than that, he was funny and playful and easy-going, and let Shera do all sorts of things that her mother would have _never_ let her do, and she idolized him for it.

"Right here, Sher'. What's wrong?"

"Grandpa! A boy! On the beach! He's hurt and he's really cold!" Her grandfather's blue eyes, widened. He ran to the hall closet, grabbed the first aid kit and ran to the door.

"Shera, come show me!" He yelled, and ran out the door, the girl on his heels.

They raced back down the cliff, so fast that poor Shera thought her legs would fall off if she walked another step. But she kept going, for the boy, _her_ boy. She grabbed her grandfather's hand in hers and dragged him toward the house.

"You put him in there?" He sounded appalled, almost angry. She nodded.

"I didn't want to leave him on the beach, Grandpa." He looked a little appeased…Grandpa was always _very_ touchy about her shack. He took a deep breath.

"Alright…show me, where is he?" She led the way, second room on the right, and prayed he was still alive. He was, even though his breath was so quiet, so shallow that, for a moment, she wasn't sure he was breathing.

Grandpa ran over to him, throwing the first aid kit on the bed beside him, and reaching two fingers up to his neck to find a pulse. Shera guessed that he found it, from his sharp nod. He grabbed for the kit and ripped it open, grabbing a roll of bandages and starting to wrap the boy's numerous cuts.

"He's lost a lot of blood…he's in shock, and hypothermic. Shera!" She jumped.

"Uh-huh?"

"In the closet beside the kitchen, there are a whole bunch of blankets. Bring me as many as you can carry."

"Okay!" She hurried to obey. It wasn't the first time that she had helped with such things. As the lighthouse keepers, her grandparents were quite a ways out of town and sometimes found sailors from shipwrecks, especially after typhoons. She had been here during two such finds.

She came back to the room after finding the blankets exactly where Grandpa had said that they would be, carting about ten blankets in a pile that towered over her head. She dumped them on the ground and ran back to her grandfather's side.

"Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know…he has about a half and half chance of making it through this, and that's only if we can get him warmed up." He turned and smiled at her, a big grin that made the rest of the world go away. "You did very well bringing him back here, Shera. I'm really proud of you." She beamed back at him. "Where did you find him?"

"Just before the point. I thought he was trash, at first." He glanced up, shocked.

"You carried him that far?" She nodded. He paused his bandaging for long enough to give her a one armed hug and a laugh.

"Wow, Sher', I'm impressed!" Her smile couldn't have gotten brighter, but their conversation was interrupted by a hacking cough from the bed. Attention was immediately back on the patient.

"The blankets, Sher'!" She grabbed them and shoved them into his arms. He quickly wrapped them around the boy, tucking them under him and under his chin. His hands rubbed the boy's face, trying to warm him up, then he started rummaging back through the first aid kit, and ended up pulling out little heating packs, which he snapped to make hot and then tucked into the blankets. The boy kept coughing, trying to hack up what was left of saltwater in his lungs. And then, something happened that neither of them expected.

Shera was staring down at the boy, watching as he gasped for breath and unable to do anything, when suddenly, his eyes opened. She gasped, and her grandfather's face whipped around, following her eyes to the boy's face. He dropped the first aid kit.

The boy's eyes were large, a bright green-y blue that was unheard of in the Islands, clear as the sea on a calm day, and precisely the same color as the water. They were fixed on some point over their shoulders staring into space. His purple lips started moving, forming almost silent, whispered words.

"The door…"

"Hello? Son, I need you to let me know if you understand me." Grandpa said, urgently. "I need to know your name, and if you have any allergies to medications. You're going to be alright, kid, okay?" The boy's eyes stayed fixed on the corner.

"The door…to darkness." He whispered. Grandpa stiffened. Shera stared back and forth between the two. _Door to darkness?_ It sounded strange and scary and very, very familiar, all at the same time. "Kingdom…hearts…"

Grandpa was really upset now. "What do you know about Kingdom Hearts?" He hissed, staring intently down at the boy.

"No…No! Don't, please don't leave me there!" The boy fought under the covers, legs kicking frantically. Grandpa threw his body over the boy's to pin him down, ducking a flailing fist expertly.

"Shera, hold his legs!" She hastened to obey, almost getting kicked. The boy kept yelling, tears running down his dirty face, washing off dirt, and sand, and salt, making it look even paler.

"Don't close the door!"

"Kid, no one will close the door! You're alright, you're out! This is Destiny Islands!" The bucking body went suddenly limp, all strength gone. He suddenly reminded the girl of her favorite toy, a rag doll, floppy and boneless.

"Destiny?"

"Yes, yes, you're in Destiny. It's going to be okay." But Shera knew it wasn't. It was never okay when Grandpa's lips got all tight like that. That meant that something bad was happening. He had got that look when Mama had told him that Papa's ship was three days late to port, right after a big typhoon two years ago. Shera still remembered.

"Where…where are they…They're here, they have to be!" He gasped out, eyes chasing shadows, looking for things, people who weren't there. Something about him made him feel familiar to Shera, something she just couldn't put a finger on. She had thought he was a Mainlander, but maybe she had seen him around the Islands before…

"Who? Who are you looking for? I'll find them!" Grandpa seemed almost frantic, panicked. The girl had never seen Grandpa scared. What had made him so afraid?

"Sora…Kairi…" Shera's head whipped around to stare at her grandfather, incredulous. He had gone rigid, eyes wide, terrified, sad, angry, hurt, happy, all at the same time, a rainbow of emotions flashing through them, many of which Shera couldn't hope to decipher.

"What-" Grandpa licked his lips nervously. "What is your name?" His eyes glittered. Sad, Shera decided. He just looks sad now...and scared.

The boy's eyes fluttered, slid shut, bright blue-green hidden behind sooty lashes. He was exhausted, his body was broken and the oblivion of sleep beckoned him in. It would grab him in a moment.

"No! Tell me your name!" Grandpa yelled, grabbed his shoulders, a desperate look on his face. Silence reigned for a moment, and then a quiet breath of air, a final waking thought before he was gone into unconsciousness…

"…Riku…"

Grandpa started crying.

* * *

Shera wasn't sure what was going on. Everything that had happened in the last hour spun around in her head, nothing quite making sense, and, smart child that she was, she knew she didn't like it. It chafed her even worse, because it was her grandparents that were hiding things now.

She was curled up on the couch in the living room of her grandparents house, staring blackly at the little guest bedroom where her boy was. Shera was sure that her Grandpa had gone crazy or something. Her mind flashed through the events of the past hour.

After Grandpa had started crying, she'd been frantic. Grandpa never cried. But then he was just sitting there, brushing hair off her boy's –Riku, she reminded herself- face, before burying his own face in his hands. She had waited for awhile, thinking he would come back to his senses quickly, then, when that proved futile, had reached over and hugged him, because it seemed like he needed a hug. That had seemed to shake him out of his stupor. He'd stood up quickly, brushing off her hug, and, very gently, had picked up the boy.

They had gone back to the house much slower than they had left it, Grandpa burdened with the unconscious boy and Shera still exhausted by the trek from the point and the dash up and down the cliff. When they had gotten back, Grandma and Mama had been waiting in the living room, just inside the door.

"Where were you!? You were gone for forever!" Mama snapped. She looked angry, but Shera knew she was just scared. She hated when they found people on the beach, ever since Grandpa was the one to find Papa.

Grandma, on the other hand, noticed the redness on Grandpa's face. "Was…was he already gone?" Her eyes got sadder, and she sighed. But Grandpa shook his head.

"No, he's still alive."

Grandma gasped, putting one hand to her cheek. "Well, what are you doing just standing there! Let's get him into the bedroom!" She took charge, shoving him toward the door, then bustling toward the hall closet to get the big first aid kit.

"Wait a minute, Kai-" Grandpa started, still looking like he was in shock.

"What's the matter? Are you alright?" But he shook his head and looked down, his mouth tight.

"Never mind. Let's get him fixed up first."

"Alright. Will I need the-" Shera had been trying to follow her grandfather into the room, listening to their conversation, but her mother grabbed her arm.

"Where are you going, young lady? That's adult business." She tried to pull away.

"But, Mamaaaa!" She begged, drawing out the last syllable and tugging against her mother's hold.

"No buts. Go upstairs and change, then come down for breakfast."

Shera had groaned and dragged her feet, but followed her mother's orders anyway. By the time she had gotten back down, Grandma and Grandpa were both in the room, with the door closed. Mama decided she was going to the grocery store, and wanted Shera to come too, but the nine-year-old had outright refused. She wanted to know what had happened to her boy, darn it!

So she stayed there on the floral patterned couch, growing progressively more bored. She had tried to knock on the door several times, only to be met with no answer each time. What was going on in there that she couldn't be in on it, anyway? She was old enough to be trusted with adult stuff!

She was so very bored, and so very curious. Was it really any surprise that, upon hearing raised voices coming from the closed bedroom, she immediately got up from her couch and crept over to the door, pressing her ear against the ancient wood so as to better eavesdrop?

"He needs to go to the hospital! Some of those cuts are deep, and dirty. We don't have the means here to treat this, you know we don't!"

"Kai, we can't take him to the hospital." Grandpa's voice was quiet; his tone sad, but even.

"Why?" Grandma cried, exasperation in her voice.

"You wouldn't believe me, sweetheart."

"You told me once that I'd believe anything. Tell me!"

"Kairi, it's him." There was silence behind the door for a few moments. 'Him'? Who was 'him'? Shera stared darkly across the hall, eyes focused on a small picture of grandma and grandpa when they were kids, without really seeing it.

"How…How is that possible? The door…" There was that door again, drat it.

"I-I don't know. It should be impossible. But it's him, Kairi. I know it."

"How? He's filthy, and torn up. Even I don't recognize him."

"He woke up, just for a minute. He was going on about the Door to Darkness, and Kingdom Hearts. Kairi-" Grandpa's voice broke. "He-he begged me not to send him back there. I left him to that!"

"Sora, you can't blame yourself…he wanted it!"

"And then…" Shera heard a sob from inside the room. "He asked me to find…" His voice trailed off, and Grandma replied, so quietly that the girl couldn't hear. She sat there, hoping that their conversation would get louder, but it never did.

So she curled up on the floor outside the door, waiting for something to happen. The noises inside were down to a dull murmur. Her eyes were still on that picture of her grandparents as kids, wondering what it was that was so special about her boy that they had to lock the door when they talked about him.

And then she saw it. She'd been staring at the picture for almost a half an hour now, and hadn't realized…There was a third child in the picture.

"Shera Hikari!" The nine-year-old jumped several feet into the air. "How _dare_ you eavesdrop!" Oh, yeah. Mama was mad.

"But Mama! I want to find out if he's gonna be okay!"

"To your room, right now!" Shera's blue eyes watered, threatening to overflow. But just then, the door to the room swung open, her grandmother revealed behind it.

"It's alright, Akiko. She has a right to know how he's doing." She turned to look at the girl. "Shera, will you come in here, please?"

"She just broke the rules!" Mama snapped. "It sets a precedent if you reward her for breaking the rules."

"I know, Akiko, but we need her for a moment."

Mama huffed. "Fine. Shera!"

"Yes, Mama?"

"There will be no dessert for you for a week, am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am." Shera nodded eagerly. She would regret having no dessert, but at least she got to go into the room now. Her grandmother turned, shaking her head exasperatedly, and led the way in.

Her boy looked a little bit better, but not much. His lips were only faintly purple now, his breathing a bit more even. There were a few lines of black stitches visible, from where Grandma had sewed up some of the larger cuts. The fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt made it all the more clear that he hadn't eaten in awhile…Shera could count all of his ribs.

"Here, Sher', help me with this." Her grandfather tossed her a rag, and gestured to a bucket of warm water. "It'll be awhile before we can actually get him clean, but let's start now, shall we?" Grandpa seemed fine, but his eyes were a bit red, like he had just been crying again.

Shera nodded, dipped her rag, and started wiping gently at some of the grime on his arm. She had to scrub a bit to get it off, leaving a pink, but clean, stretch of skin behind her. Grandpa began working on his other arm, and Grandma took and brush and some water, and started detangling his long hair.

"Wouldn't it be better to just cut it, Grandma?" The girl asked, watching her struggle with a particularly stubborn knot.

"I suppose. But, I just can't imagine him with short hair." There was that sadness again. Shera wanted to know why.

"Do you think he's from around here?" Both of them stiffened.

"Why would you think that?"

"I dunno. I think he looks sorta familiar." Shera didn't miss the slightly alarmed look on both of their faces.

"You…you do?" Grandma asked, pausing in her brushing. Grandpa was looking at her with the same intent look that he had been staring at Riku with.

"Yeah. I dunno, maybe I've seen him in town before or something." They both let out a breath that it didn't look like they knew they were holding. Shera wondered why they were so uptight about it, but brushed it off.

"Oh, maybe something like that. I'm sure he'll be able to tell us when he wakes up."

"I guess. I dunno. He sounded kinda crazy when he woke up last time." Grandpa turned away, eyes closing painfully. Grandma only smiled softly and replied.

"It was just the shock, dear. I'm sure that, if he pulls through this, he'll be fine." Shera nodded. That made sense. Then she remembered something he had said back in the shack.

"Grandma? Do you and Grandpa know him?"

"What makes you think that?"

"He asked for you, when he woke up. He said he was looking for Sora and Kairi. That's you and Grandpa, right?"

Grandma pursed her lips, sad and scared and tired. "Yes, sweetie, I think he was asking for us. We'll find out why when he wakes up again."

Shera was not so easily assuaged. "But, do you know him? Who is he? Is he from the Mainland? Or-"

"Shera!" Grandpa snapped, then pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "We don't know. Now, could you please go get me another bucket of warm water?"

The girl sighed, old enough to know that she was being shut down. She grumbled out a "fine" and left to get the water. When she got back, her Grandmother was packing up the first aid kit, and her Grandfather was standing, brushing off his pants.

"Sher', your grandma has some errands to run in town, and I need to go set up the lighthouse for tonight. Will you keep an eye on R-" He paused, jaw clenching, before continuing. "On our patient?"

Shera nodded eagerly, dropping the bucket onto the floor with enough force that water sloshed out, and scrambling up into one of the bedside chairs.

Grandpa smiled a little at her enthusiasm. "And you can clean up that water too." He waited until she stopped groaning overdramatically, "If he wakes up, give him this. It's already measured out, and it'll make him go back to sleep, okay? Just make sure he drinks all of it." He set the small cup of greenish medicine (that Shera knew from experience tasted like a cross between seaweed and bubblegum. Ick!) onto the bedside table.

"'Kay, Grandpa!" The girl chirped happily, fully ready for her new post.

He set a wrinkled hand on her Grandmother's shoulder and guided her out gently, grinning back at her. "Behave yourself now! We'll be back soon!"

Shera heard them banging around in the living room for a minute or two, then the door slammed shut and the house went quiet. Now, she could solve her mystery!

She ran out to the hall, grabbing the small picture of three children off the wall, then dashed back to her chair. After pausing for a moment to make sure he was still asleep, she held the photo up and compared.

It was an old photo, from when Grandma and Grandpa were maybe seven or eight, younger than she was! So definitely a long time ago. Grandma's hair was bright red, like Papa's had been, cut to her chin, and she was wearing a white sundress. Shera had one just like it. Grandpa's hair was brown instead of grey, still messy, and his eyes were still the color of the sky over the ocean. A wooden sword, just like the one against the wall in her shack, rested across his shoulders.

It was the third child that interested her. He stood between her grandparents, solemn expression out of place in the middle of two sunny smiles. He stared straight at the camera with eyes the color of the water close to shore, a bright blue-green, with a ragged shock of silver white hair cut to his ears shading them from the sun. His shirt was bright yellow.

Then, there was her half-drowned sailor. The teen's hair was now clean, revealing the color to be a similar silver, perhaps a bit darker that the boy in the picture's. Shera was too scared to pull back his eyelid to see if his eyes matched, but she was sure it was pretty close, remembering from when he'd woken up. The rags that had been his shirt (now in a kinda smelly pile on the floor) looked like they might have been yellow. Or orange, but she was going with yellow. All similarities. Hmm.

But her boy couldn't possibly be the same boy from the picture. Shera wasn't that great at math, but even she knew that this picture had to be at least fifty years old, probably more. If they were the same person, her boy would look more like Grandpa, and less like…well, a boy. Maybe it was 'cause his hair had already been grey?

Nah, that couldn't be it. He didn't have wrinkles either. So, that meant, clearly, that her boy must be related to the picture boy! He could be the grandson or something of this long-lost friend! Maybe they had lost him on some crazy adventure, like when she and her cousin had gone exploring into the woods, and got separated. Shera'd thought that Sano'd gotten lost and had tried to find him for _hours_ , but when she'd come home, he'd been sitting at the table, eating cookies and laughing about how stupid she was.

Stupid Sano.

Anyway, maybe not some kind of crazy adventure. Maybe the picture boy had just moved away, and now her boy wanted to see where he'd lived. Or maybe he'd been on an adventure of his own! Shera bet he knew all kinds of things about the other Islands and possibly about the Mainland too! Shera wanted to see all of those places one day. She couldn't wait until she was big enough.

A small groan jolted her out of her thoughts. In a flash, she was out of her chair and leaning over the bed, holding him steady as coughs wracked his body. She backed away when his breathing settled again, staring at him with wide blue eyes. He met her eyes with his own, half-lidded green-blue ones.

"Where am I?" He asked, voice raspy and hoarse, like Shera's had been when she'd gotten that cold that made gunk build up in her throat.

She smiled at him. He didn't seem half as crazy as he had the first time! "You're in Destiny Islands! I found you on the beach and brought you back here!"

"Who-" He coughed again, but not as bad as last time. "Who're you?"

"My name's Shera! You said yours is Rikko, right?"

"Riku." He corrected, looking a little more awake. He tried to sit up, but Shera was there, pushing him back down. It was hard…he was stronger than he looked.

"Nice to meet you!" She grinned at him. "Hey, are you from the Main-" She stopped staring as he reached out shakily and took the picture frame from her hands.

"Sora," he whispered, brushing his fingers over her Grandfather's face, then over her Grandmother's. "Kairi."

"You _do_ know them!" Shera bounced excitedly on the side of the bed. "How? How?"

He stared at her with the same I-Don't-Know-Where-You-Get-This-Energy look that Mama had sometimes. "They're my friends."

"So, do you know who that is?" She pointed to The Picture Boy, staring from the middle. Riku looked at her like she was crazy.

"That's me. How do you know-" He stopped, looking at the confused expression on her face.

"Well, then howcome you aren't _old_?" Shera'd already been over this theory.

That question seemed to make him confused too. "What do you mean, old?"

"Well, that's my Grandpa," She pointed, "And that's my Grandma. You don't look like you're as old as them."

He was shaking, pupils shrinking in like Grandpa said they did when people were scared. "Wha-what year is i-it?" When Shera hesitated, he repeated it, louder, grabbing her arm. "What _year_ is it?!"

"I-it's 256 AI!" She yelled in reply, trying desperately to pull her arm away. "Stop, that hurts!"

"No." He moaned, hoarse with fear. "No!"

He let go of her and started screaming like a dying person, holding his head as if it would explode if he let go. Shera scrambled backwards on her bottom from where she'd fallen, pressing up against the wall and staring. The door banged open next to her, and her eyes met her grandfather's for a split second before he ran toward the bed.

"Riku! Riku, look at me! It's Sora, I'm here, please look at me!"

The boy did, eyes wide. Shera could see him taking in her grandfather's gray hair and the crow's feet around his eyes. Riku shook his head back and forth, tears running unchecked down his face. "How?" He whispered, brokenly.

"You were behind the door, we couldn't get you out. We tried for years, Riku, I swear, we tried everything."

Her boy choked, covering his face with his hands, his breath coming in frantic gasps. "T-the king?"

"The king made it out. He didn't know what happened, only that you got separated." There were tears in Shera's grandfather's eyes now, as he reached out and put a hand on Riku's shoulder. "Everyone else made it home."

The boy sat bolt upright, eyes pleading. "My brother? Where is my brother?"

A muscle jumped in her grandpa's jaw, like it did when he had really bad news. Shera put two and two together and cringed. "Riku, you need to drink this, we're not done stitching you up. It will make you feel better." He held out the green medicine.

The boy started shaking. "Where. Is. My. Brother." He sounded angry.

Sora sighed, setting the medicine back down. "We don't know, Riku. He disappeared when we came back without you. We- we think he tried to go looking for you himself."

The silver-haired teen stared at her grandfather for a long time. Finally, he laid back down, staring up at the ceiling, face blank.

"Riku, we looked for him, we looked for you. I don't know what else we could have done. I'm sorry."

But the boy just stared at the ceiling.

* * *

Shera got in a lot of trouble for talking to the boy and scaring him. She didn't think she'd get dessert again, ever, and wasn't allowed back in his room. She still snuck in sometimes, as the days went on, but he mostly slept. Whenever he was awake, Riku just stared into space, refusing to talk, or move, or do anything.

Her grandparents got more and more worried as the days turned into a week. He was clean now, and when they put a bowl of soup and a mug of tea in his room and left, it would be empty when they came back. He looked less like a skeleton, but not by much. At least his cuts were healing. Her grandmother took the stitches out after ten days, leaving little pink lines of scars and crusty red scabs all over, but he still didn't move.

Time passed on.

* * *

Shera's habit of sneaking into Riku's room continued, as a month passed, and she began sitting in there with him whenever her mother and grandparents were gone. He didn't seem to mind. It wasn't like he got a lot of visitors these days.

Her grandparents were fighting, and for once, it wasn't with her mother. Grandma wanted to take Riku to the hospital. She thought he needed therapy and medicine to make him not so depressed, or something like that. Her grandpa said he needed to stay here, that he'd be okay once he 'got over the shock'. Shera wasn't sure she agreed with either of them. She definitely didn't agree with Mama, who just wanted him out of the house. She thought he was a bad influence, one that wasn't good to expose Shera to.

So, Shera sat with Riku. At first, when he was awake, she was quiet, and just sat and colored, or read, or worked on her summer homework for school. After a little while, she got bored of that, and started to talk to him. He never responded, of course, but that wasn't totally a bad thing. She could tell him all about her friends at school, and her stupid cousin Sano, and her Mama, and her pet bunny that she had to give to a friend after she and Mama moved in with Grandma and Grandpa after Papa died. He was a good listener. And so it became her routine, to sit and talk and tell stories, and there was never any break in routine.

Shera waited in the kitchen until she heard the door click shut, and then counted quietly to twenty, before racing to the guest room, throwing open the door, and bouncing over to the chair beside the bed.

"Good morning!" She chirped, pulling her coloring book and crayons out from under the bed, and setting them on the bedside table. "I hope you liked your breakfast! I helped Grandma make it. French toast is my favorite. Grandma always makes it when I'm sick and it makes me feel better." She leaned close to his ear conspiratorially. "I added extra whipped cream to yours, and Grandma didn't even catch me."

She flipped through the book to a blank page: a mermaid. Shera selected a green crayon and started shading in her tail scales. "I didn't know what story to tell you today, 'cause I already talked about Mr. Honey Bunny and how we had to give him away, and about Miko and Sakura and Aiko and Sano. But then I realized that I told you lots of happy stories, so I thought I'd tell you a sad one." She switched to purple. Mermaids could totally have purple tails.

"So my Papa, he was Grandma and Grandpa's son, and he loved to sail. He taught me how to steer a boat and everything when I was really little. Mama wasn't as worried about everything back then. He had red hair and blue eyes and looked like my Grandma did when she was little, 'cept he was a boy. When he grew up, he wanted to be a sailor, so he started working on one of the boats that takes people over to the Mainland and to other Islands."

"He worked really, really hard and soon he got to be captain of the ship! He promised me that when I was bigger, he would take me and Mama to all the different Islands, and to see the Mainland. He said that it was cold there, and there was fluffy ice that would fall from the sky, and that it was called snow. How weird is that?" She concentrated hard on her mermaid. Shera didn't get to talk about her Papa much, since it made her family so sad, so talking about him was hard. She didn't notice Riku turn his head to look at her.

"But there was this one day, that it was really clear and pretty and Papa had a whole boat of people to take to the Mainland, but Grandpa told him not to go, that there was a storm coming. Papa, he thought he could make it before the storm hit, so he took the boat out anyway. And then, there was this really, really big storm, and it knocked over a bunch of trees and we didn't have power for three days, and nobody heard from Papa."

"Then I was at school and got called to the principal's office. I was super scared, because I'd never really been in trouble before, not since I accidentally cut Aiko's hair in kindergarten. Mama was there and crying and she said that Grandpa found Papa but that he wasn't coming home. They didn't let me see him either, so I didn't believe it for a while. Then Mama sold the house and we came to live here, 'cause Grandma and Grandpa could help with me, and Mama didn't want to live there around all of Papa's stuff." Shera sniffled a bit.

"Grandpa found Papa on the beach, just like I found you. I'm glad you made it, even if my Papa didn't."

A sudden touch on her arm made Shera smear her yellow hair crayon across the page. Riku was looking at her! She stared at him, wide-eyed, wondering if he was going to start screaming again, like he did last time he had talked to her.

"They found me on the beach too, when I was little." He whispered, eyes sad. "Me and my brother."

She smiled, tentative at this truce. "You have good luck with beaches."

He coughed, but it sounded a little like a laugh. "I guess."

"I'm sorry about your brother." She told him. "You didn't get to say goodbye to him either, like I didn't get to say goodbye to Papa."

He rolled back to face the ceiling, eyes sad. "No. I didn't."

* * *

That night, Shera's family sat down for dinner. Like every dinner for the past month, it was a tense affair. Her grandparents weren't speaking to each other. Her mother was angrily stabbing her fish with a fork. Shera was sad that she wouldn't get any of the coconut pie that Grandma had made for dessert. They all froze when they heard the click of a door opening.

Everyone's head swiveled face the silver haired teenager standing half shadowed behind the guest room door. His blue-green eyes darted over their faces as if they each held their own threat. When his eyes landed on Shera, the boy let out a small sigh, and walked toward the table, pulling back the empty chair beside Shera and sitting down.

"Riku…" Shera's grandpa started, but stopped when the boy tensed. A deep breath, and he reached for plate of fish and scooped a small piece onto the spare plate that had been set at the table. A small spoonful of rice joined it, and Riku began eating, ignoring everyone else.

The grownups shared a look and then, almost as one, began eating again, ignoring him. Shera almost shook her head at them. Grownups were stupid sometimes. She turned to her boy and beamed at him. "I like flounder a lot, don't you? It's my favorite fish. My least favorite is tuna, that's just gross."

Riku turned a little and gave her a tiny smile. Shera returned it and continued chattering at him, about everything and nothing. He didn't look at her again, but when dessert came out, he shoved his slice of pie at her. Even her mother didn't bother to correct him.

* * *

After that, Riku ate dinner with them every night. He didn't talk much, but it slowly got less and less awkward. He began helping Grandpa with the lighthouse, and going on Shera's morning walks with her. Grandpa had pulled her aside the first day Riku went to walk out with her and warned her to take the long way, away from her hut on the beach. She'd already figured out that it was where Riku and his brother had lived. If Riku realized that she was avoiding it on purpose, he never commented on it.

It had been agreed, reluctantly by Shera's mother, that the two should be allowed to spend time together. It gave Shera a playmate and babysitter (even though she argued that she was plenty old enough not to need one and hadn't really needed one for more than a year) and around Shera, Riku opened up a little, slowly relaxed, and maybe, started accepting what had happened. Shera knew, and she thought her Grandpa did too, that the boy would never actually accept the changes that had occurred, but it made her Grandma feel a bit better, so Shera didn't say anything.

By his third month staying with the Hikari family, Riku had gained some weight back, his cuts had healed into nice pink scars, and he was starting to gain back energy and muscle. He preferred Shera's company over anyone else's. He told her once that it was because no one acted like he expected them to, and that that was hard for him. Shera understood that. She had a hard time talking to some of her friends from before Papa had died. People changed and expecting them to stay the same and have them not, that was hard.

What Shera told no one is that often, at night, she would look out her window and see Riku standing in the yard, long silver hair shining in the moonlight, holding a strange, scary red and black sword, shaped like a wing. She would watch sometimes as he danced with it, twisting and stabbing and slashing as if he were fighting some invisible army. She wondered if he thought he would need to use it, and whether it had something to do with the Door to Darkness and Kingdom Hearts that he had talked about, back when he had just woken up. But Shera knew that she would get know answers if she asked, so she kept silent.

* * *

Fall came slowly, then all at once. The weather and the daylight didn't change much with the changing seasons, like Papa had said it did on the Mainland, but fall was storm season. The typhoon that had brought Riku was unseasonal, unexpected, but not as bad as some of the ones that rolled in this time of the year.

One particularly bad storm had blown a palm tree over onto the lighthouse. The building was sturdy enough that it didn't really do too much damage, but some glass broke, and the rail that kept people from falling off the top of the lighthouse, and part of the mechanism that made the light spin around.

Grandpa had been busy fixing it for the past few days, but insisted he didn't need Riku's help. The boy had shrugged, and gone around to the neighbors, offering to mend fences and broken windows and crushed roofs. The neighbors, who had initially been wary of the quiet boy the Hikari's had taken in, were more than grateful. Shera, however, was not a fan of them keeping Riku out and away from the house dawn til dusk.

The nine year old had been back to school only two weeks, and she already wished it was summer again. She wanted to be out at the play island, or dragging Riku or Sano around on adventures, not stuck in the kitchen alone, working on math homework!

Shera hated math. She liked science and reading and recess and just about everything else about school, but what really was the point of long division? Math was where she struggled, and what took her so long when she was doing her homework. She had tried arguing with her teacher, her mother, and anyone who could listen that long division was just not necessary to life. Her teacher had replied that if she wanted to be a doctor one day, they did math all the time, in their heads even.

Shera had had no answer for that, other than to grumble and groan more.

The kitchen door swung open, and she spun around, hoping it was Grandpa. He always helped with her homework when he could. Instead, it was Riku, sweaty, grimy, with bags under his eyes, but home early for the first time in a week. Shera leaped up, hugging him around his middle.

Riku laughed. "What's that for, squirt?" He peeled her off gently, grabbing a cup out of the cupboard and making himself a glass of water before plopping unceremoniously down at the table.

"I haven't seen you for aaaaggggeeesss!"

"I was just over at the Taromoto's. You could have come by." He pushed his dusty hair off his face, pulling one of her worksheets toward him. "What's all this?"

The brown haired girl groaned, slamming her head down onto the table. "Homework. I just can't do it!"

"What don't you understand?"

She launched into her usual tirade about how math was terrible and she bet that her teacher was just lying about doctors doing long division all the time and it was just stupid. He reached out, slapping a hand over her mouth to quiet her.

"I didn't hear anything in that about what you don't actually understand. Not liking something isn't an excuse to be bad at it. I thought you were smarter than that."

Shera bristled. "I'm not dumb!"

The older boy ran a hand over his face, obviously choosing his words carefully. "Of course you're not dumb, Shera. That's not what I meant. But you're making excuses. Show me what you don't understand. Maybe I can help?"

The brown haired girl pouted, wrinkling her nose at him, before sighing. "It just takes me so long. I can't figure out how to decide what numbers to try to divide by to make it work."

"Okay, I think we can figure that out. Have you tried to-"

They spent two hours working on the worksheet, then on some practice problems from the back of Shera's text book. By the end, Shera actually felt really good about the problems. She and Riku had even gone back and checked them and she thought she had gotten them all right.

"You make a really good big brother." Shera had been so excited that the words were out of her mouth before she really thought about them. She turned bright red. Riku had gone rigid in his chair, staring at her, face pale. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"No, it's okay." He cut her off. His eyes were sad again.

"I'm sorry. It's just, sometimes my friends talk about their big brothers or big sisters helping with homework, and I just-"

"I said its okay." The silver haired boy sighed, running a hand through his long hair. "My brother- he-" He stopped, staring out the window. He was looking in the direction of the shack on the beach, Shera realized.

"You don't have to talk about him." The girl offered, quietly. "But sometimes it helps, I think. I can't talk about my papa to Grandma and Grandpa and Mama, but when I talk about him to you, it makes the hurt better. A little."

He was still staring out the window. "He used to help me with homework too. Used to say that, that not liking something wasn't an excuse to be bad at it. But he was always there to help when I got stuck."

"He was a good big brother." Shera smiled. "What was his name?"

Riku looked startled, as though he hadn't realized he'd never said his brother's name around her. "Kai. His name was Kai."

"You must miss him a lot."

"I just- It was all I wanted to get away from this place. I never really thought about him not being here when I got back." His jaw clenched, teeth gritting together. He wouldn't look at her. "And no one knows what happened to him, he just vanished. He could be locked up behind the Door to Darkness too and it would be all my fault-" He cut himself off, shoving his knuckle between his teeth and biting it. His hand was shaking.

Shera didn't know what to say to that, so she did the only thing she could, jumping up from her seat and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. Riku choked out a laugh. "The funny thing, he'd be really angry at me for thinking like that. He used to tell me all the time, not everything was my fault."

"He gives good advice." She squeezed him tighter. "You're here now, right? Kai's a good big brother. And a good big brother would want you to be happy, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah, he would. Kai was always big about second chances. He'd be angry at me for wasting mine." Riku stood up suddenly, pushing away from the table. Shera let go, watching worriedly. "I'm going to my room to work on some stuff before dinner."

He opened the door, but turned and looked right at her before going in. "Shera?"

"Yeah?" She asked, still standing by the kitchen table. She was so scared she had said the wrong thing, made him angry, or upset, that he would go back to being a silent ghost in the house.

"You're a good little sister, too."

She beamed at him, and kept smiling even after the door had closed. And like a good little sister, she never mentioned that she could hear him crying in his bedroom a short time later.

* * *

It seemed, for a while, that their odd little family was complete, and would go on this way forever. The guest room stopped being called the guest room and became Riku's room. The grownups started talking about getting Riku enrolled so he could finish high school. He didn't like the idea, and wanted to find a job. He was helping around the house, actually had been cooking most meals (and avoiding tuna, something that Shera was grateful for), and had been doing work around the lighthouse, but said he had been freeloading long enough. That argument was ongoing.

He met Sano and Shera's aunt and uncle, finally, and they were told that he was a shipwreck survivor that didn't have any family, so her grandparents had taken him in. Sano looked up to him immediately and took to following him around, right at his heels whenever they came to visit, which annoyed Shera immensely. After all, Riku was _Shera's_ big brother, not Sano's. Riku had laughed when Shera had told him that.

For a while, everything was perfect. Shera had the big brother she always wanted, Grandma and Grandpa were smiling more every day, and with Riku taking care of most of the chores around the house, Mama finally had a little time to relax, so she'd been happier too.

Then came the storm, and everything fell to pieces.

* * *

When Shera got home from school, the sky was getting dark, which was odd because it was only two thirty in the afternoon. Riku was mowing the grass in the yard, his shirt hanging on the porch railing and Shera was pleased to see that she couldn't see his ribs anymore. He was almost fully recovered and she was just a little proud that she had helped him get there. She waved at him and went to go put her bookbag away and start her homework.

Riku came inside while she was struggling with her math homework, fixed a cup of water, and sat down at the table with her. They were working their way through five digit multiplication when the first big gust of wind hit. Riku jumped up and peered out the kitchen window, staring at the thick, pure black clouds rolling in.

"Shera," He said, face tight and worried. "Call your mom. They need to come home now."

"Howcome?"

"Just do it!" He snapped at her. She stared at him, wide eyed. He had never raised his voice at her before.

"I'm sorry. But this is serious. I need you to do everything I say."

She nodded, a bit wary, and grabbed the phone, dialing her mother's number. A single, long beep was all she heard. "The phone's not working."

He said a few words that she would never be able to repeat, but stored them away anyway, just in case. A small flash of light, and that odd, wing-shaped sword was in his hand. Shera backed away from him. She hadn't completely forgotten that episode he'd had when he first woke up, screaming and hurting her arm.

Riku saw her reaction and knelt in front of her, setting the sword on the ground. "Shera, listen to me. This is going to be scary, but I will keep you safe, no matter what. This isn't a normal storm. We need to try to get to your mom and grandparents, before it's too late. I need you to be brave, okay?"

It was pretty close to the most words she'd ever heard him say at one time. She nodded, and slid her hand into his. The silver haired boy picked up the sword and tugged her outside. "Stay close to me." He told her, and they began running toward town.

Shera had always kind of liked being outside of town. It was quieter, and cooler with the sea breeze always blowing, and the view over the ocean was way better than only being five minutes from school. Right now, though, as they ran along the road toward the mayor's office, where Grandma still worked even though she had retired from the job itself, she wished with all her heart that they lived closer. She was huffing and puffing quickly enough, but Riku barely looked winded. She glanced at the road behind her, trying to see how far they were from the lighthouse, and screamed.

Riku moved, faster than she had ever seen anybody move, slamming the wing-sword home right into the face of the yellow-eyed, bug-like creature than had been leaping for them. A quick twist, and he slashed to his right, catching a second one in the chest. The creatures melted out of the ground, dozens of them converging on the two. Riku scooped her up in one arm as if she weighed nothing and ran, slashing and stabbing as he went.

The wind picked up, buffeting them to the side, as the sky turned blacker and blacker until it almost looked purple. Riku was panting, glancing up at the clouds, ahead at the town, slowly growing in the distance.

"Sora's fighting." He murmured, and she looked up, ahead at the town, at lightning striking once, twice, three times at the same spot, then a flash of bright white light. Riku whirled around to strike at another black monster, bigger this time, with long antennae and blue streaks on its head. It knocked his blade to the side, cutting a long, thin gash on his arm with its claws. He backhanded his sword through its head with his second strike, ignoring the gash. Shera suddenly realized where he'd gotten all of the cuts he'd had, back when she'd found him.

"We're not gonna make it, are we?" She asked, voice quivering. She already knew the answer. He held her tighter, whirling to spear another monster. The purple sky was swirling, the wind pulling at Shera's clothes and whipping Riku's long silver hair into her face. A branch pulled free from a nearby palm, flying up into the sky.

Riku looked up, evaluating the swirling sky, the wind, the distance to the town. "I promised I'd keep you safe, didn't I?" She nodded into his shirt. He bounced his shoulder to make her look up. "Shera…Do you trust me?"

She looked at him, and saw the boy that she'd rescued, that she'd helped bring back into the land of the living, that had become the big brother she'd never had. And she nodded.

With a twist of his wrist, the wing-sword vanished and he wrapped both arms around her, holding tight. She buried her face, squeezing her eyes closed, and never saw the darkness swallow them.

* * *

Shera hurt, everywhere. Even places she never thought it was possible to hurt, like the muscles around her eyes and her hair. How can hair even hurt? Shera's did, though. Her shoulders felt like the one time she'd almost slipped out of a tree and Sano'd had to grab her wrist and yank really hard to keep her from falling, and her head felt like there was someone pounding on it from the inside.

The girl tried to pry her eyes open, only to be met by a bright light that made her headache instantly ten times worse, so she tried to feel around instead. Soft bed, sheets that were smoother than the ones at home. One pillow, not a bit lumpy. It smelled weirdly like flowers, but it was fall, not spring. There shouldn't be any flowers blooming right now.

She tried her eyes again, slowly this time. That seemed to do the trick, though her head still hurt enough that she wanted to cry. She was in some kind of bedroom, with paper on the walls and a vase of flowers and a glass of water on the table. A poster for something called Rumble Match was tacked on the wall behind her bed. The window was open, a breeze blowing the gauzy blue curtains gently, and there wasn't even the slightest smell of salt in it. The girl pushed herself up, hobbling stiffly to the look out.

What was outside was like nothing she'd ever seen. The window looked out over a whole, shimmering city. There were gardens everywhere, and in the distance, huge waterfalls. Overlooking everything was a huge castle, all pipes and gleaming windows reflecting the sun. Even the air seemed to glitter, as if there was magic in it.

"Where am I?" The brown haired girl breathed out, almost not daring to make noise. There was land as far as she could see. No ocean anywhere. Was this the Mainland?

The door swinging open made her spin around, too fast. Her head protested, vision exploding into stars. Strong arms wrapped around her catching her as she fell.

"Whoa, there, kiddo, not so fast!" The woman who had caught her sounded her Grandma's age, but there was something mischievous in her voice. Shera kept her eyes closed as the woman lowered her back down onto the bed. "Wow, do you look the spitting image of Sora."

Shera cracked her eyes open. She was right, the woman was about her Grandma's age, maybe a little older, with short gray hair held back with a bandanna. Her eyes were black, framed with crow's feet and clearly used to smiling. "You know my Grandpa?"

"Yes, ma'am! Sora had plenty of adventures around here when he was not that much older than you." The woman grinned, holding out her hand. "I'm Yuffie. Your name's Shera, right?"

Shera nodded, gingerly, shaking her hand. "Where am I? And where's Riku?"

"You're in a world called Radiant Garden. Riku's around here somewhere. You're head hurt, kid?"

Shera, perfectly aware that her questions hadn't really been answered, nodded again. The woman turned around and shouted at the door, making the girl wince. "Hey Squall! Painkillers in here, please!"

"Fifty years, and you still can't get my name right." Grumbled the old man that popped through the door. He had long hair, steely gray, and a face so wrinkled it almost swallowed the scar that cut across his nose. He limped slightly as he made his way to Yuffie, dropping a bottle into her outstretched hand. "It's Leon."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Yuffie shook out two pills and offered them and the glass of water to Shera. "Take these, kid, you'll feel better."

"I'm not supposed to take stuff from strangers." Shera replied, stubborn and a bit wary now. They said they knew her Grandpa, but did they really? Why were they here? Why was _she_ here? And where was Riku?

Yuffie laughed and Squall (Or Leon?) smirked. "Smart kid." The man said. "Riku! You're sidekick's awake!" Shera heard rustling and footsteps, then Riku's familiar silver head appeared at the door.

He looked ten years older, exhausted. There were dark bags under his eyes, a scratch on his cheek and a bandage on his arm. The wing shaped sword hung from a strap across his chest. But he still smiled when he saw her, and reached over to ruffle her messy hair. "Hey Sher'."

Suddenly, everything that had happened crashed down on her. The monsters, the fighting, the shadows, her Grandpa fighting in the town, everything, and she couldn't stop the tears from welling up in her eyes and her lower lip from trembling.

Riku's eyes got sad and he opened his arms wide. Shera wrapped her arms around his middle and started crying into his shirt. He rubbed soothing circles into her back, murmuring quiet things she couldn't really hear, but they sounded vaguely comforting.

"Shera, kid, you need to take the painkillers. They'll help you feel better. Right now, you probably feel like you got hit by a bus, right?" She nodded into his chest, smearing snot onto his shirt. "They'll make you feel better and help you sleep. You'll need all the sleep you can get if we're going to find your grandparents and your mom. Okay?"

She sniffed. Yuffie dropped the pills into her hand and gave her the glass of water from the table. Shera reluctantly swallowed them, then buried her face back in Riku's shirt. He was going to be covered in snot.

He peeled her off, gently, and laid her back in the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. "Sleep tight, little sister. We've got a long road ahead of us."

She fell asleep almost immediately.

* * *

When voices woke her up, Shera had no idea how much time had passed. It was dark outside the still open window, and the breeze had turned cool. She shivered, wrapping the blanket around her as she sat up. She still hurt, but not as bad as before.

Climbing out of the bed, still wrapped in the blanket, she crept over to the door, listening and trying not to remember a time, not so long ago that she had eavesdropped on her grandparents discussing the odd shipwrecked boy she had found.

"You should leave her here. World traveling is no place for a kid." Squall's rough voice was recognizable. "Much less Sora's grandkid."

"What, leave a nine year old with a couple of strangers who happen to have met her grandfather fifty years ago? Yeah, I don't think so." Riku sounded harsh, angry, and exhausted. Shera wondered what the fight had taken out of him to make him so tired.

"She'll be safer with us than with _you._ " Squall's voice had a particularly venomous twist she didn't like.

"I didn't ask you to help us-"

"We're not helping you, we're helping Shera. She's the granddaughter of a Princess of Heart and a Keyblade Master. She could be just what we need-" That was Yuffie, sounding more serious than Shera had heard her yet.

"I won't let you drag a nine-year-old into your war!"

"What right do you have? You lost the privilege to make calls about the war when you betrayed Sora for Maleficent, all those years ago!" Betrayed Grandpa? Shera hadn't heard anything about that!

"I did my time for that, and then some. Or do you think fifty years in Kingdom Hearts was a walk in the park?"

"That's another thing. You shouldn't have survived that! How could you, except by some dark powers?"

"I don't need to defend myself to anyone, least of all you." Riku hissed. "Shera and I are going to find Sora and Kairi. But we aren't getting involved in your war. Not until she's old enough to make that decision herself."

"What gives you any right to make decisions for her? You're not her guardian!"

"No. I'm her big brother. She chose me for that. And I'm going to be the best damn big brother I can and do what I wish someone had done for me. I'm going to protect her."

"Because you've done such a great job of protecting your friends before? World destroyed, again, Sora and Kairi missing, possibly dead or Heartless, not to mention everything that happened the first time around?"

"I'm done. Help us or not, I don't care. We're leaving." Shera ducked around the corner just as Riku said that, dashing back to the bed and hiding under the blanket. She heard footsteps come into the room. Yuffie and Squall didn't follow him.

She felt his hand rest on her head. "I know you were listening, squirt."

Shera peeked out from under the blanket, smiling sheepishly at him. "A little?"

"I wasn't lying, when I said we were going to find your grandparents, and your mama. But Shera," He looked straight into her eyes, super serious. "I'm going to find them whether you come with me or not. And you don't have to come. You can stay here, live with Leon and Yuffie, go to school. Coming with me could be dangerous."

"It sounded like it might be dangerous to stay here." She said, blue eyes downcast. She didn't understand half of what they were talking about, but 'war' didn't sound good.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair like he did when he didn't know what to say. "Nowhere is safe. They think you're special, because your grandparents were special. And you are. But maybe not in the way they think. I don't know. We could find somewhere else for you to stay. Sora had friends everywhere. Maybe King Mickey, even…" He trailed off, thinking.

Shera shook her head, sending her messy brown hair flying. "I want to stay with you."

"Sher', this is important. I need to make sure you understand. We could be fighting. We could get hurt. This isn't a game, lives are on the line."

"But if I'm with you, you can protect me. And you can teach me to fight too, so I can protect you too! Please don't leave me behind." She swiped at her eyes, hoping he didn't see the tears. "I want to come. Please."

Riku smiled, gently. He reached out a hand.

She took it.

* * *

Oh. My. Gosh.

This took me about seven years to write. I'm serious. Document was first made on July 6, 2009. Ugh. I kept writing a bit, then stopping and forgetting about it, then writing more, ect. I can't believe it's actually done.

So, credit where due, some of you older members of this site and this fandom may remember a fabulous story called A Fragmented Tale by Rurouni Saiyan. The idea of time having no real meaning in Kingdom Hearts comes from that. Beyond that, I was watching my sister finish KH1, and saw the Deep Dive ending video, and something about the phrase "Darkness until eternity" stuck with me. As in, what if you could live in Kingdom Hearts forever. And so, this story was born.

It initially wasn't supposed to be this long. It was just going to be a short one-shot about Sora's granddaughter finding Riku on the beach, fifty years in the future and him having to adapt to that. I guess that's still what it is, just about ten times longer than initially planned.

I also want to say there is absolutely no romantic interest between Shera and Riku. Seriously, a big brother/little sister thing. He misses his family and his friends (Because it's just not the same to have them that much older) and she accepts him as who he is. Just getting that out there.

I made Shera a pretty precocious kid, but I hope it's still believable. I've met some pretty smart nine-year-olds.

Riku and his brother are entirely my head cannon. Something about the way Riku takes to Maleficent makes me think he never really had a mother figure, so I went with older brother who raised him. More of a chance to expect him to still be alive fifty years in the future, rather than a single father. When Riku says "We may never see our parents again", he considers Kai his parent. I've got a whole extensive backstory for them too (Sora may or may not be the only member of the trio originally from Destiny Islands ;) ).

Anywho, you know the drill, I love reviews.

Peace out, ya'll.


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